Mark Duggan’s family were not told of his death, says police watchdog. The IPCC upholds complaint by Duggan’s family who say they were not told that he had been shot dead by police.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17208397

A post 9/11 generation aware of the power of the media image have attacked their town’s iconic buildings setting them alight.

Trouble began in Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm Estate when a young Black man was shot dead by police.

When the dead man’s family approached their local police station to get some answers – amazingly the police had not spoken to them -a young girl was alleged to have pushed aside and then suddenly there was a night of looting.

The police did not overact – that was the one thing they have got right in this very sorry saga. Small scale rioting – awful for the people trapped in this – followed in some of the poorest boroughs of London, and has touched Liverpool and Birmingham also.

An eighty-year-old man appeared before a parliamentary committee earlier today to answer questions about how the organistation that he ran had managed to hack into the phones of so many people, including that of the dead schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

No he was not to blame, he said, he had been let down by the people he had trusted.

And he was very, very sorry for the harm that had been caused.

This was, he said, the worst day of his life.

As you watched this giant of the media world being humbled by a parliamentary process of country that was not of his birth, somehow you were aware that you would never look Rupert Murdoch in the same way ever again. Great Power is only great when it is behind in the shadows, when it is exposed to the sunlight it can wilt, that was the…

China and India are said to be the rising stars of the economic world and if last night’s Piers Morgan’s programme on Shanghai is anything to go by, this will all mean some people are going to get incredibly rich.

Trouble is that in this arena of winners and losers, there are an even larger number who will not and who will suffer in this brave new world.

BBC News carried a report through out the day about illegal workers from India who had come to Britian to get work and perhaps a better life.

Well, the recession has paid put that idea and since those illegals burned their passports when they arrived here, they are trapped because the Indian government says that since they do not have the correct paperwork they can’t return home either.

The pictures of despair and sheer desperation that were broadcast were perhaps the most disturbing to be shown on terrestrial television yet.

One young man who said he was 21 had just been released from prison and was back on the streets – clearly for him the free world had nothing to offer. How did he get into trouble in the first place – shop lifting to get him the drugs that get him through the day.

Then, the reporter took us to the place where many of these illegals, non existents, spend the night in the cold exposed to the weather, with little more than drugs and an appalling sound born of misery to get them by.

It just so happened that these poor people are from India, there are others also Russia Today broadcast report last December about Polish people getting by eating rats.

No doubt there are others from every corner of the Third World, including of course China.

The jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has written in today’s Guardian newspaper arguing the Arab spring had inspired peoples everywhere including Russians. He called on voters to reject Vladimir Putin in next weekend’s Presidential elections. He also claimed that the middle class who it is said will be in a majority in ten years time will no longer accept Putin’s ‘managed democracy.’

According to The Guardian, Khodorkovsky has emerged as “a siren voice of freedom and democratic change”, though it adds for balance that he has also become a divisive figure for ordinary Russians who remember him as a billionaire oligarch.

All this may be true, but when Vladimir Putin came to power Russia which had been a superpower had just defaulted, it was also within the iron grip of a number of business men who appeared to have no other interest than amassing more wealth for themselves and it was of course ordinary Russians who suffered as a consequence.

So, if someone like Khodorkovsky appears to be a divisive figure to the not so well-heeled, they may have a point.

A fraudster who “tricked his way” into becoming a governor of one Nigeria’s oil producing states has pleaded guilty to 10 counts of money-laundering and conspiracy to defraud at a London Court.

James Ibori, a former governor of one of Nigeria’s oil-producing states, was accused by British police of stealing $250m (£160m) over eight years. He changed his plea to guilty as his trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court was about to begin and admitted stealing money from Delta state and laundering it in London through a number of offshore companies.

Ibori was arrested in 2010 in Dubai and then extradited to London.

Some $35m of his alleged UK assets were frozen in 2007.

Prosecuting QC Sasha Wass said Mr Ibori, 53, had “tricked” his way into becoming Delta state governor, by giving a false date of birth and claiming he had no criminal record.

“He was never the legitimate governor and there was effectively a thief in government house. As the pretender of that public office, he was able to plunder Delta state’s wealth and hand out patronage.”

He is due to be sentenced on 16 April.

Mr Ibori’s wife, Theresa, his sister, Christine, his mistress, Udoamaaka Okoronkwo, and his London solicitor, Bhadresh Gohil, have all been convicted of money-laundering.

Their convictions could only be reported on Monday after reporting restrictions were lifted.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had asked the UK’s Metropolitan police to look into the ex-governor’s financial affairs.

“The vast sums of money involved were used to fund Mr Ibori’s lavish lifestyle,” Detective Inspector Paul Whatmore, the officer in charge of the investigation, said.

“We will now be actively seeking the confiscation of all of his stolen assets so they can be repatriated for the benefit of the people of Delta State.”

With his team two down, on the back of heavy defeats to AC Milan and Sunderland, Arsene Wenger must have wondered whether his once great side was facing its third straight high-profile failure.

And with former golden boy Theo Walcott also the subject of abuse from home fans, the omens did not look good.

The Arsenal boss needed his men to step up.

They did not disappoint – by the end of the first half Arsenal had wiped out that lead.

Once again, it was Robin Van Persie, who set up the first and secured the second, all within three minutes.

The second half was all Arsenal with Walcott’s surges – often criticised for not going anywhere – producing two impressive goals.

Arsenal’s fans – some of whom had left the stadium after their North London rivals exposed the Gunner’s defensive frailties with a goal in the fourth minute and a penalty by Emanuel Adebayor in the twentieth – were toasting perhaps their team’s greatest triumph since that defeat of Barcelona on February 16, 2011.

They were also toasting the former fall guy now restored golden boy Theo Walcott.

Arsenal’s problems at the front and back are still there, but surely the true test of this team will be whether they can put five past AC Milan in the Champions League on March 6. Then, we will know whether Arsenal have moved on or have just flattered to deceive.

Have we come to a turning point in America’s relationship with Afghanistan?

The violence that resulted in the deaths of five today – three civilians shot dead, and two senior Nato service men, a colonel and a major – certainly suggests so.

America’s occupation which was never accepted by a people who have never welcomed foreign armies on their soil is now even less secure following the burning of the copies of the Holy Quran in Bagram Airbase.

Even those who have been the allies of the Isaf will be unable to explain away the actions of the Americans who still don’t seemed to have grasped the enormity of their actions – pulling out personnel from Afghan buildings in the short-term will not solve the problem.

For the Nato soldiers killed in the violence that has resulted from the burning of the Holy Quran have been killed by members of the Afghan security forces – people who were supposed to be on their side.

And for the first time, the anger can not be explained away by pointing fingers at a single ethnic group.

A Sky News report described this anger as ‘blind rage’ – it’s not that, it’s the anger felt when someone has just thrust a spear into something that is as precious to you as your heart.

Marie Colvin the American journalist who was killed after a rebel base in Homs was hit has been lauded for her fearless pursuit of the truth. A veteran war reporter who had lost an eye in Sri Lanka she was undeniably brave, however was she in the same league as those other great names who lost their lives in the recent past, namely Anna Politkovskaya and Terry Lloyd who also lost their lives taking huge risks to seek the truth?

Well, Marie had already decided who was right and who was wrong in this conflict, by putting herself in the rebel camp, she was effectively an embed, still brave but to a large extent compromising her impartiality.

Journalists who did the same in Libya should make a return and honestly ask themselves whether what they said at the time has helped Libya.

Great journalists don’t bandwagon, they go out to find out for themselves what the reason for the conflict really is – and because of the huge risks this entails that does lead to their deaths, like Terry Lloyd in Iraq or the angel of Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya who was gunned down on a Moscow Street for her reporting of perhaps the most savage conflict of the last decade of the twentieth century.